After the National Storytelling Festival, we headed over to Hilton Head Island in South Carolina, tagging along with our friend who’s been going there since he was a youth. Not being a beach lover, I can still say it was awfully nice — the beach, the incredible huge trees, the alligators, the Nature Preserve, and the lovely bike trails everywhere.

Hilton Head is a popular place — how popular, I couldn’t say, not wanting to quote PR material. But it’s got massive beaches, a whole ton of golf courses (including at least one world-class one), great scenery, congenial weather, etc. By rights, taking a vacation down there should be beyond relaxing. It should be restorative.

And yet. I’ve got a problem with the place. Not the island. It’s what’s been done with the island. Or to it. I’m talking about private resorts and gated communities. Driving to the island we passed ten — ten! — private gated residential golf communities. Do you have any idea what kind of space a gated golf community takes up? How about ten of them? And that’s before you get to the island itself. We stayed at a residential resort at the far tip, which you can hardly call a “tip,” since the 50-year-old gated community takes up 5000 acres. It’s got at least two insanely gorgeous beaches with firm sand and warm water. It’s got three golf courses. It’s got a 600-acre Nature Preserve and extensive biking trails absolutely everywhere. It’s ideal.

Ideal except that it crashes straight up against my deeply rooted egalitarian tendencies. I’m no communist, but “residents only” signs splattered all over beautiful places just pisses me off. It feels wrong, a response which, combating as it does the rights of private property owners, is practically un-American. I think the English have the right idea with traditional rights-of-way. Some firm sense in me says that it is absolutely wrong to deny access to natural beauty to anyone. Sure, you could argue that the beaches on Hilton Head are technically open to the public. But unless you pay an access fee (okay, it’s only five bucks, but it could easily be fifty) to enter the resort, you’d have to walk a darn long way along the coast to get to the beaches legally. That’s hardly open to the public.

And then there’s the feel of it. A gated community is a surreal enough thing, with its Brave New World ideas of what a safe, perfect life would entail. But pile miles upon miles of them together and you get the sur-surreal. I had to keep asking our friend, “Are there schools here? Where are the towns? Does anyone actually live here?” It wasn’t until the last day that we drove through a town with houses and trailers and shacks and broken-down cars and tricycles in the yard — a far cry from the over-landscaped, meticulously meticulous “community” we’d just come from. And even there, new private resorts were swallowing up land and hanging gates between overbearing pillars and guardhouses.

But heck, it was a nice place. I admire the way the resort founders kept all those old, massive trees around, and even the McMansions were painted in muted woodsy colors that kept you from realizing how ghastly they were. My son adored hanging out naked on the beach with the waves washing around him. And, despite the annoyance of being woken up every morning at 6 by landscapers and maintenance people doing god-knows-what incredibly noisy things to bushes and tennis courts, there’s a lot to be said for a place that has bike trails up the wazoo, even if they are “residents only.”

I’m a big fan of acerbic travel writer Leif Pettersen, author of the Lonely Planet guidebook to Romania and Moldova (here’s why he insists that you need to go to Romania.)

Read more of him at his blogs Killing Batteries and This Is Why I Love Minneapolis (And Sometimes Saint Paul.)

This past year, he finally got what all travel writers aspire to and hope for: The Elusive Really Good Deal.

In return for his excellent work for Lonely Planet, he was the anointed guy to help update their Tuscany and Umbria guidebook.

In between hysterically funny rants about St Catherine of Siena and why he thinks Naples blows chunks, Leif appears to have gotten some work done in Italy:

“I must say that I hit the Eating sections hard. I heroically managed to dine in nearly 70 Tuscan restaurants during my 31 days on the road for this guidebook. There were times that I reeked so much of truffle oil that dogs came running out of the hills and gave chase as I drove by. I spent over 150 euros on gelato alone. I drank enough wine to earn a lifetime membership in the Pope Paul III Wine Appreciation Club….There’s already been a flood of positive reviews about the book online…..

‘This guidebook changed my life. I’ve arranged to be legally wed to it.’ – Leif Pettersen, Amazon.com”

Hmmm, that last one seems a little suspicious.

With Lonely Planet TV, Leif gives us a nice video overview of must-see towns in Tuscany.

If any Perceptive Travel blog readers have other suggestions for this part of Italy, we’d love to hear from you down in the comments.

(For RSS and email readers, click this link if you can’t see the video embed box below.)

When I wrote in March cajoling everyone to attend the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee, it was months away. Now, we’ve just come home from the best weekend of the year, having introduced our son to a storytelling extravaganza.

A lot of people ask me if I read my stories or essays at this event, which tells me not everyone understands what storytelling really is. Of course writing fiction and creative nonfiction involves a storytelling element, but this event showcases professionals of a different shade. Picture yourself seated around a campfire, the only sounds the crackle of the flames and an occasional hoot of an owl (a coyote or wolf if you’re going for ghost stories). The best talker among you starts to tell a story about the funny old lady down the street who used to watch him as a child, or a story about her Cuban father’s introduction to American Southern culture. Every other person in the group is spellbound, caught up in the simple way the words lilt and fall, creating images and scenes, and evoking emotions different but emphatically and bindingly human in each person.

That’s what a storytelling festival is, except this one is held in massive circus-like tents outside. Fires probably not encouraged, but I’ve seen tellers so good they could probably make you feel the warmth of a nonexistent flame. The National Storytelling Festival is the best of the best, with storytellers from all over the world, from a 4-time winner of the West Virginia Liars Competition (Bill Lepp, who was also a Methodist minister) to Charlie Chin who uses three simple props (a fan, a stool, and a robe) to bring audiences of hundreds or thousands into traditional Chinese tales.

From a storytelling immersion, you come back renewed, hopeful, with a mind more open and receptive than it was when you left home. Amid the turmoil of politics and war and injustice, storytelling gives some hope for the future of both humanity and humanism. It’s also sheer, pure, classic entertainment. I’ve laughed until my sides split at preacher Donald Davis’s rendition of his ill-fated donkey-riding descent into the Grand Canyon, and shivered as David Holt sent me to frightening places accompanied by the eerie strumming of a steel guitar.

Festivals are born out of traditions: harvest, celebration, the welcoming of spring, the turning of the year, whatever is unique to each culture. Storytelling — the passing of history and individual wisdom through word of mouth — is a tradition that is common to all.

(Top image: Storyteller Barbara McBride-Smith, copyright Tom Raymond, Fresh Air Photographics)

Check out this book review and giveaway of Lonely Planet’s book Volunteer, A Traveler’s Guide to Making a Difference Around the World.

Entries close 17th October 2008…

I’ve been a fan of L.L. Bean products for years (I wore out one of their River Driver’s Shirts.)

When we lived in New England, we took several road trips to Maine that included the obligatory stop at their flagship store in Freeport, Maine, established in 1912.

If you go to Maine, don’t miss the L.L. Bean outlet store there in Freeport, but remember that, like most outlets, the best buys are often out of season.  My wiggly kids always thought I was nuts when I had them try on coats at the outlet in July, but we had the last laugh when they donned their new finery in November.

Store founder Leon Leonwood Bean was an avid outdoorsman and the store’s products and general vibe reflect that, but many don’t know that you can also go kayaking, biking and camping with the L.L. Bean Outdoor Discovery Schools.

I knew about the School in Maine, of course, but learned recently that there is a branch in Maryland with plenty of island-hopping kayaking in the Chesapeake Bay and fly fishing near Columbia, Maryland and Front Royal, Virginia.

The offerings in both Maine and the mid-Atlantic seem to be mostly geared to the novice and mid-range adventure traveler, but for the semi-hard-core they also offer multi-day excursions and certification courses like Wilderness Advanced First Aid.

You can also experience short, half-day $15 “Walk-On Adventures” (kayaking, flycasting and “GPS Techno Treasure Hunts”) in many L.L. Bean stores across the US, including stores outside New England like Center Valley, Pennsylvania and Tyson’s Corner, Virginia.

Naturally, the company hopes that after a scenic day of kayaking with them, you’ll be inspired to, well, go buy an L.L. Bean kayak, but it’s certainly not required (although they do offer a 10% off coupon for select gear and apparel to those who register for a course.)